


Cry If You Need To

by booksnchocolate



Category: Bandom, Marianas Trench, Real Person Fiction
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, Unrequited Love, back to the angst!, guys who don't cope with their feelings, idiots making each other miserable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-29 03:47:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booksnchocolate/pseuds/booksnchocolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> Cry if you need to, but I can’t stay to watch you; that’s the wrong thing to do.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cry If You Need To

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Title and summary from Drake’s “Doing It Wrong”. Sorry for the angst. Originally posted anonymously at [FYJM](http://fuckyeahjoshandmatt.tumblr.com/post/63676631334).  
> Disclaimer: I don’t know anyone in real life; this is for fun and not profit

It starts with three words, so simple and full of promise and hope – but they hang in the air like a death sentence and from that moment, there is no going back.

“I love you,” Josh says, and the world changes.

“What the fuck?” Matt asks through numb lips. He can’t have heard that right; there’s no way he’d heard that from the mouth of his best friend. But Josh keeps talking, the words coming faster and faster, tumbling over each other in their haste to escape.

“That’s – I just need you to know, Matty. I can’t keep it a secret any more, and even – even if you don’t feel the same way, I need you to know.” There's a blotchy flush crawling up his neck like fire, but his voice is raggedly, painfully earnest.

“Jesus, that’s a lot to spring on a guy, Josh.” Matt leans against the counter. One minute, they’re hanging out at Josh’s place, shooting the shit about life; the next, Josh is professing… this? Matt can’t breathe.

Josh looks down. “I know,” he says; his voice is a whisper and Matt is forcibly reminded of the misfit kid in high school with the too-big t-shirts and wonky hair.

Matt lets out a shaky breath. He feels like shit. What is he supposed to say? “It’s not that I’m not – flattered – but… I … I need time,” he says, already casting about for denials, for excuses. But Josh has already said the words he wasn’t ready to hear.

Josh replies softly, almost sweetly, “Take all the time in the world, Matty. I’m here. I’ll always be here.”

Matt swallows against the bitter taste of a lie and doesn’t look him in the eye.

***

And time passes and Josh never mentions it, never presses the issue; but one day, he turns his blue eyes on Matt and the truth Matt sees there is more than he was ever prepared for.

He drops his gaze to the floor. “I need more time,” he says in response to the unasked question, and when he looks up, his eyes are pleading, pleading with Josh to understand and to back down.

No such luck. “Are you even still serious about this?” Josh demands. “Cause it sure doesn’t look like it from where I’m sitting.”

“You said I could take my time,” Matt says defensively. “That’s what I’m doing.”

“I said a lot of things.” There is no mistaking the anger and bitterness in Josh’s tone.

Matt feels like he’s been slapped. “What – you said you loved me!”

Josh looks away. “… I did.”

“And do you?” Matt whispers. His chest is tight.

“I can’t answer that right now.”

“Say it,” Matt all but growls. “I want to hear you say it.”

“I can’t.”

Matt says nothing, just looks at him.

Josh ducks his head and curses. “Don’t make me do this, Matty,” and his voice is a broken rasp.

Matt steps closer. “Say it, damn you.”

Josh bursts. “Listen, I was ready! All those months ago, I was patient and I waited and you – you gave me nothing, Matty, d’you understand that? Nothing! You dated other girls for fuck’s sake! What am I supposed to do with that? Tell me.” He’s breathing heavily and his eyes are bright and wild.

An electric shiver runs down Matt’s spine, fear or adrenaline, or both. “You’re supposed to wait like you fucking said you would! All the time in the world, that’s what you fucking said.”  Softer, he adds: “You said… you said you’d always be there,” and he can’t help the way his voice cracks.

Josh scuffs at the floor. His shoulders are slumped, but when he looks up, his eyes are hard. “Yeah. I did. But I never thought you could be this cruel, Matt. I said I’d wait, and I have, but you’ve got a live-in girlfriend and you’ll barely give me the time of day; I know when to cut my losses.”

“Is that it then? Huh? Is that it?” But he’s speaking to Josh’s retreating back as the singer gets up and leaves without a word or a backward glance.

Matt breaks up with Nicole a week later.

***

Months after their second confrontation, Josh shows up at Matt’s door. His presence is like an electric charge crawling across Matt’s skin and setting his nerves on fire. Matt squirms in the suddenly too-small kitchen. The silence feels like a living being, ready to engulf them and swallow them whole.

“Matty…” Josh says, and it sounds like a plea, like a prayer.

But Matt turns away, shrugging up his shoulders as if that will defend him from an onslaught of emotion he's spent months avoiding. “Don’t call me that. Don’t ever call me that. You lost the right to call me that when you said you never loved me.”

That’s the wrong thing to say.

“Don’t,” Josh says, and suddenly his voice is low, harsh, and dangerous. “Don’t fucking put words in my mouth when we both know I never said that. Never. I said I was done waiting on false hope, but I never said I didn’t love you.”

“Yeah, well,” Matt huffs, “You’ve got a fucked up way of showing it.”

Josh drops his hands to his sides, shoulders slumping, the very picture of defeat. “What do you want me to say, Matt? What do you want to hear? I’ve been honest from the beginning, but if you want me to start lying now, just say the fucking word.”

His voice is shaking and the words hit Matt like a punch to the throat.

“Josh…” he says, then shakes himself and looks away. “I wish,” he begins, voice thin and wrecked, “I wish you didn’t love me.”

The words break the air like gunshots. Matt regrets them as soon as they leave his lips. But he can’t lie.

Josh looks away. “Trust me,” he says bitterly, “I wish so too.”

There’s a long moment of silence as they avoid each other’s eyes. Eventually, Matt breaks. All of this is just prolonging the inevitable. “I – I can’t. I can’t do this.”

Josh looks up, and the emotion on his face is too powerful for Matt to witness. “There’s – there’s no way to change your mind, is there?”

Matt opens and closes his mouth mutely. “No,” he manages at last. His voice is choked beyond all recognition and his chest feels like it’s going to burst. “I’m – Josh, I’m so sorry.”

As if sorry could ever fix it. Josh closes his eyes. “Right,” he says, voice painfully even. “I’ll be going now.”

Matt can’t look him in the eye. “Josh –”

Josh swallows. “Bye, Matty.” He pretends not to see Matt flinch at the endearment; Matt pretends not to hear his voice crack on the word.

Matt trails Josh to the door and watches as he stumbles to his car. Josh sits in the driver’s seat for a long moment, staring at the steering wheel. He looks up and meets Matt’s eyes one last time. Even from far away, Matt knows that expression, knows the particular shade of blue Josh’s eyes will turn as he squints into the sun. For a brief moment, he wonders if Josh has catalogued such things about him, too: the way his hair sticks up in the mornings, the way he takes his cereal at breakfast – but it is a passing thought, no more, and by the time he is done thinking about it, Josh has pulled out of the driveway and peeled off down the road.

It will not hit Matt until later that he missed this last chance to say goodbye.

Later, when he cleans his kitchen, Matt will find a torn piece of paper pinned next to the telephone. There’s a phone number scrawled on it, blue ink looping in familiar handwriting. He will keep the paper next to his phone until not seeing it becomes a habit, until blue eyes fade from his memory and his heart stops hurting (it will take a long, long time).

Josh will not spend all his days pining by the phone. He will not spend more sleepless nights than he has to dwelling on dark eyes and honey-golden hair. But he’ll check his messages every night, hoping against hope that Matt will call.

He never does.


End file.
